It is known that, in recent years, there has been an increasing use of cards, usually plastic, both by public institutions, private associations and commercial businesses, for the most varied purposes. For example, current driving licenses, tax code cards, health cards, credit and debit cards, bank cards, most season tickets for public transport, and also cards for collecting points or for obtaining discounts and promotions in commercial businesses: all these are of this type. Nearly all the above cards have a standard size, less than one millimeter thick and with a rectangular shape with a short side of 54 mm and a long side of 86 mm.
Due to the increasingly widespread use of cards, whereas until a few years ago in our wallets there were usually 3 or 4 cards, nowadays this number has at least doubled.
Known wallets have the disadvantage that they have a limited number of compartments or pockets for cards, and therefore, often, in the same pocket the user is obliged to insert two or more cards, one on top of the other. Consequently, more and more often, wallets really become very thick. There are also wallets on the market with partly overlapping pockets disposed on several rows: however, these are bulky and voluminous even when empty.
Furthermore, the disposition of the pockets for cards in known wallets has the disadvantage that they increase the reciprocal friction between the cards and between the cards and the pockets, impeding the removal thereof, especially of cards positioned deeper down.
Another disadvantage of known wallets is that their overall thickness, when they are closed, or folded back on themselves, and when they contain several cards, is given by the sum of the thickness of the walls that make up the wallet and the thickness of the cards contained therein: this thickness deforms and often damages the wallets themselves.
Furthermore, the excessive thickness of known wallets is not only unaesthetic and deforms the pockets of clothes where the wallets are disposed, such as trouser pockets or close-fitting jackets, but can also cause mechanical stresses on the cards, which can consequently bend and break. This is particularly important in cases where the wallet is kept in a back pocket of the trousers, and kept there even when the user is seated, as a large number of men tend to do.
The French patent FR-A-872.654 describes a wallet comprising three rectangular walls, parallel to each other and bent in their central zone along a common main bending axis. Each wall defines two flaps positioned on opposite sides with respect to the main bending axis. Five of the six flaps, in correspondence with their external edge, are bent to form five corresponding containing pockets which, when the wallet is closed, are all one on top of the other. The outermost wall of the wallet is provided with an additional closing wing and, in correspondence with this, it does not have a corresponding containing pocket. Therefore, this known wallet has the disadvantage that when it is closed it has a thickness equal at least to twelve times the thickness of a single wall, thus becoming very bulky. Furthermore, since in the closed position all the containing pockets overlap, the cards, or any other object contained therein, will also overlap.
One purpose of the present invention is to obtain a wallet, advantageously of the pocket type, which can easily contain a large number of cards, even more than 10, and possibly also bank notes, and which at the same time is not bulky even when it is full and folded over.
Another purpose of the present invention is to obtain a wallet in which it is easy to insert and remove the individual cards contained therein, irrespective of the number thereof.
It is also a purpose of the present invention to obtain a wallet in which the cards can be put securely, without them falling out of the corresponding pockets involuntarily, and without them being damaged by bending and/or insertion into or removal from the pockets.
The Applicant has devised, tested and embodied the present invention to overcome the shortcomings of the state of the art and to obtain these and other purposes and advantages.